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Ex-Channel 4 chief slams Google

Luke Johnson hits out at the Silicon Valley giant for being “monstrous.”

By Paul Briden, 10 Jan 2011 at 17:16

The former chairman of Channel 4 has launched a scathing attack on Google, accusing the company of being “profoundly unethical.”

Luke Johnson directed his disapproval at Google Street View in an article he wrote for the Mail on Sunday. He described it as a “monstrous” invasion of privacy and made allegations that the company had engaged in tax avoidance by using tax havens such as Bermuda and Ireland.

Johnson continued his assault on the company by calling it a Google a “parasite” living off the back of the UK entertainment and media industries.

He added the British commercial media's economic model was “threatened” by Google as they “siphoned off” advertising revenues to California. He accused the company of producing no content of its own, whilst dominating the online search and advertising market and contributing little to the UK economy through corporate taxation.

A Google spokesperson rebutted the claims, saying: "Google complies completely with the tax laws of all the countries in which we have operations. As a result, we make a very substantial contribution to local and national taxation and provide employment for around a thousand people in the UK.”

"We also generate significant revenues for other companies, and give more than $5.2 billion (£3.3 billion) annually to our AdSense publisher partners, including newspapers and broadcasters across the world."

This was unlikely to deter the strong words from Johnson, however, and he concluded his article:: "Just as Rockefeller’s Standard Oil was an oppressive enterprise that became so powerful it had to be broken up for the public good – so I believe Google must be seriously tackled in the national interest."

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1 comments

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Ireland a Tax haven?

It seems a bit rich for Luke to accuse Ireland of being a Tax Haven. They are full members of the EU, and worked very hard to try to build up a specialist workforce in the IT sector, both hardware & software, attracting giants such as Dell, Intel, Google, Symantec, Creative Labs and many many more. This is very different from having a brass plate PO box in a post office in Switzerland as your Head office for tax purposes as companies like boots do. Besides do you really begrudge Ireland getting their slice of the cake in the current economic climate - considering the massive deficate they have due to bailing out their banks?
With regard to the Street View and the ethical issue surrounding that... well this is a capitalist market we work in... if you dont like the product or it's parent company then vote with your wallet and use Bing or Yahoo instead. Even campaign to encourage others to do the same. I could mention several such boycotts - the most famous being against Nestle for allegations about their methods of selling Infant Formula milk in developing countries and treatment of employees in some countries. The controversy about Googles behaviour is insignificant compared to companies involved in practices like that, or issues like sweatshop labour, or illegal & unethical arms dealing.
If you want to criticize a company which has hit the UK in a very "personal" way why not focus on the way in which Kraft promised not to move any jobs out of the UK, then borrowed the money to buy Cadburies from a bank owned 80% by the uk tax payer (Natwest) and 24 hours after closing the deal announced the clozing of one of the factories with production of those products being moved to other parts of the world.
Sorry Luke Johnson, but get a life and get a bit of perspective on what ethical issues are truly important.

By AnRuaRi on Tuesday Jan 11